Tumultuous week ends with top officials resigning Board of Regents

Updated 3:06 pm, Saturday, October 13, 2012

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The Board of Regents has recommended Philip Austin as interim President to fill in for Robert A. Kennedy, who has resigned following a week of controversy over the discovery he secretly gave hefty raises to his top staff. Austin will step in if the move is approved by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. less

The Board of Regents has recommended Philip Austin as interim President to fill in for Robert A. Kennedy, who has resigned following a week of controversy over the discovery he secretly gave hefty raises to his ... more

Photo: Contributed Photo

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A 2005 photo of Philip Austin, then president of the University of Connecticut. The Board of Regents has recommended Philip Austin as interim President to fill in for Robert A. Kennedy, who has resigned following a week of controversy over the discovery he secretly gave hefty raises to his top staff. Austin will step in if the move is approved by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. less

A 2005 photo of Philip Austin, then president of the University of Connecticut. The Board of Regents has recommended Philip Austin as interim President to fill in for Robert A. Kennedy, who has resigned ... more

Kennedy's resignation came Friday morning and was accepted by the board after it called an emergency midday session. Meotti's resignation came Friday evening, hours after board Chairman Lewis Robinson said Meotti was still a state employee.

The events capped a tumultuous two weeks for the year-old board, which learned not only that its community college presidents felt their jobs had been threatened by system officials, but that Kennedy had handed out more than $260,000 in raises to board staff, including a $47,000 boost for Meotti that brought his annual pay to $232,244.

Meotti returned the raise when it became publicly known, but there was a growing chorus of lawmakers calling for his resignation. He was commissioner of higher education for the state before the position was dissolved to create the Board of Regents last year.

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Meet the new boss
Philip Austin, 70, served as the University of Connecticut's 13th president from 1996 to September 2007. He returned as interim president in May 2010, until the arrival of Susan Herbst in 2011.
Austin was born in Fargo, N.D. He has a master's degree in agricultural economics and a doctorate in economics. He served in the U.S. Army and was awarded the Bronze Star. Before UConn, he served as chancellor of the University of Alabama system and was president of Colorado State University. While at UConn, he oversaw a major construction and renovation program.

Meotti said he "did not want to be a distraction to the important change agenda across our 17 colleges and universities," in a statement released by board spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan-Johnson.

"Mike's decision to leave the Board of Regents is one that, while unfortunate because of his years of higher education and public policy experience, will help us move forward from the events of the past few days to focus on the critical issues at hand ... to ensure the success and the support of our students," said Robinson and Austin in a joint statement.

Just hours earlier, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy accepted the recommendation to appoint Austin and called him an outstanding choice.

"His reputation is beyond reproach, and he will bring much-needed stability to the Board of Regents central office the first day he walks in the door," said Malloy, who had handpicked Kennedy.

A salary for Austin, 70, has yet to be worked out, officials said. He will start as soon as the governor appoints him and will serve for the five to six months it takes to find a permanent replacement.

Austin called it an honor to lead the board of Regents for Higher Education. "The work ahead isn't going to be easy -- change never is -- but it's critically important that we move forward on the issues of college preparedness, career training and workforce development, to support Connecticut's economy and our state's residents," he said.

Robinson said after the meeting there were two names presented to the board when they went into executive session. He wouldn't say who the other candidate was, but indicated that in a conversation with the governor's office earlier in the day, Austin was the clear favorite in the governor's eye.

The board was created by the Legislature a year ago at the urging of the governor. With the new board, the state's 12 community colleges, four state universities and online university are consolidated under one management umbrella.

The idea was to spend less on overhead and have more to spend on the colleges. The board recently announced it had saved more than $5 million and used some of that money to add faculty at its colleges. Some $260,000 of it, apparently, was also used to boost the salary of 21 central administrators, including to Meotti, without the board's knowledge or consent.

The board was also unaware that the six-week sabbatical taken by Kennedy this summer was essentially a working vacation and not spent on study.

The board also voted Friday to establish a three-member special committee to investigate what has transpired. The committee will be headed by Naomi Cohen and also include Yvette Melendez, vice chairman of the board, and Michael Pollard. Melendez said she is certain once the board gets to the bottom of the situation, they can put it behind them. She also said she feels fortunate to have Austin available to the Board of Regents.

"He had experience running a large research university. He knows Connecticut," said Melendez. Those are the same kinds of qualities she wants to see in a permanent replacement, and which have been lacking over the past year, she added.

Malloy selected Kennedy, who was previously from the University of Maine, before the Board of Regents was in place last year.

Austin, who will step in as interim president, was president of UConn from 1996 to 2007 and served as interim president for a year when his replacement did not work out. Most recently, he served as interim vice president of the UConn Health Center. When he was interim president at UConn he made $370,000 a year.

Robinson expects Austin to hit the ground running. "I can't imagine finding a finer person to serve us at this time when we are trying to move forward," he said. "The objective is to try to get back on track."

Time is of the essence, according to Robinson. Not only has the reputation of the fledging system been tarnished, efforts to advance a bold and controversial student remediation program are also under way and need support from the board's college presidents. The program will sharply curtail the ability of colleges to offer non-credit "catch up" courses to students who are not ready for college level work. Instead they would have to get extra help as they take credit courses.

"I have found out like everyone else through the news reports," she said. "I want to know who authorized the pay raises and what was behind the conversations with the presidents. I am hoping our Board of Regents gets some answers," she said.

She said the board and the colleges have not been kept informed and it is not a good way to operate.